KC8LPZ

First Listen to AO-51

I noticed this afternoon there'd be a pretty good pass by AO-51 just after 6pm. After dropping my girlfriend off at home (because she had to go home anyway, not because she's afraid of me with big antennas and electronics, although that also may be true), I got home and had just enough time to grab the Arrow antenna and whatnot, and head out to the park just a short walk from my apartment.

I didn't do so bad, only getting one car passing by that seemed to yell something to me as I was quickly scanning the southern horizon for a signal. Not bad for a creepy-looking long-haired guy with a big antenna in his hand. I didn't catch what they said though, because I had earphones in, so I choose to believe it was "You're awesome!".

Anyway, it was a big of a handful, juggling the Zire for PocketSat+ and very minimal notes (kind of logged what I heard), the antenna, the radio, and so on. Despite that though, I did hear plenty. The equipment-juggling made writing down things difficult, but I heard some mentions of EM40 (right near New Orleans, pretty great - laugh if you like, but for me, that's some real DX), FN42, and the call sign N8MH.

I didn't transmit at all, but I didn't plan to, either - I'm still just testing the waters. I'm thinking doing this would be much easier if I had either a tripod, a second person, or both. We'll see. All in all though, a great little taste of working satellites, certainly enough to go onward from.